Written by: Marie Huwe
What could you do with business applications and tools that are integrated-by-design yet built-to-flex to evolving business demands? Could you rearrange a business unit quickly, to meet new priorities? Could you reorganize people and systems and retrain staff to take advantage of a new opportunity?
You know that professional services firms are responding to increasingly demanding clients. As a firm leader with P&L responsibility, you’re concerned with reviewing the numbers from all angles, detecting concerns before they become problems, and directing early corrective action. You need to orchestrate and balance utilization across time zones, business units, and even companies. Whether you are leading the consulting practice of an IT firm or whether you are a partner in an architecture and design business, you work to develop client relationships while delivering proposals and making sure that your team is ready when the time comes.
As practice manager, you are a master of both the complexity and fundamentals of business—of people, process, and financials. You’re a talented problem solver who can adjust to changing client, market, and operational needs. But in today’s market, that means you’ve got to be ready to change at a moment’s notice.
Post originally written for Forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/sites/microsoftdynamics/2013/02/27/conducting-a-symphony-of-complexity-the-practice-manager/